Food is Climate

A Book Review by Louise Harmon

It is easy to understand how fossil fuels contribute to climate change. The image of industrial smokestacks, coal-fired energy plants and gas-guzzling cars belching out pollutants and fouling the air leaves little doubt. However, it is not quite as obvious as to how the food on our plates directly impacts our climate.

In Food is Climate, author Glen Merzer confronts the narrative we have long been given by politicians and the media--that the burning of fossil fuels for energy is the leading cause of our current climate crisis. He provides an in-depth look at a far more lethal yet less discussed cause: methane. 

Merzer argues that transitioning to clean energy sources, like solar and wind power, electric vehicles and LED lighting, is a nice story but does little to address the real source of the problem--the global warming effects of methane. He asserts that reducing methane concentrations in the atmosphere will have a far greater impact on the climate in the short term than a similar reduction of carbon dioxide. 

So, where does all this methane come from? 

Methane is a gas produced by the breakdown of organic matter, especially by cows, sheep and other ruminants through their digestive process. Ruminants have a four-chambered stomach where microbes ferment grass and other ingested plant matter, producing methane gas which is either belched out or eliminated in the animals’ feces. Merzer estimates that the number of livestock world-wide is over 25 billion. The methane emitted from these animals, according to Merzer, has up to 120 times the warming effects of carbon dioxide. The vast deforestation related to animal agriculture practices (clearing land for grazing and raising crops to feed livestock) also adds to the carbon dioxide levels already in the atmosphere generated by industrial sources.

In the United States, we tend to downplay the seriousness of global warming, including by those very individuals who are vocal about climate change.  Merzer sharply dissects the recommendations, as well as the social and political sidestepping of several prominent climate activists including Bill Gates (How to Avoid a Climate Disaster), Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth), and Paul Hawken (Drawdown).

Merzer points out that there are some countries who take climate change very seriously and are putting actionable plans in place. 

Bhutan is a shining example. The tiny country of Bhutan has included protection of its national resources, land and ecosystems into its constitution, ensuring that a minimum of 60% of its total land will be maintained under forest cover for all time. Millions of acres of land have been reclaimed by farmers in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. China is attempting to reestablish new forest under its Great Green Wall project.  

Merzer’s recommendations for addressing climate change are, in his words, ‘simple’: stop meat production and consumption, stop industrial fishing, rewild grazing lands and plant a trillion trees.  

He acknowledges that a ‘vegan revolution’ would not be easy. Merzer notes that we can “…continue to be numbed into inaction by the handcuffed ramblings of our leading spokespeople on climate…or we can simply take off the intellectual handcuffs, improve our health, end hunger, and begin to cool the planet by simply not eating meat.”

Food is Climate includes a large plant-based recipe section, with contributions by Chef AJ, the Jaroudi family, Dillon Holmes and many others. 

I appreciate Merzer’s no-nonsense, direct approach to the little-discussed contributing cause of global warming: methane emissions from animal agriculture. 

Food is Climate is a short, easy read, devoid of the more shocking aspects of the meat industry which might otherwise turn some readers away from the important message of this book.